Only 9% and 1% of children believe entirely in the bible.

I remember the time when I was pastoring my first church and a much older preacher told me not to preach the passages I was asking him about how he would preach them. My response was that I was going through the book. His response was to skip the passage and that probably nobody would notice. Now we see where that has gone among so many preachers. I simply refused to just disregard scripture. I have always felt that telling the congregation that I do not know is better than skipping passages and pretending. In that same convention I spoke with an author who has since died and he told me that the published of the commentary completely changed what he wrote. That gave me great disrespect for that publisher. I know of two similar things by that same publisher.

 

I would like to see the source of this poll before I gave it any serious thought. Considering that it was used on "The View" doesn't exactly give me confidence in it veracity.

 

I looked at 'The View' website and saw no mention of that on the recaps. Perhaps it was just mentioned in passing. I personally would not doubt the statistics but it would be interesting to know who brought it up and why.

 

gb sez:

A great big triple AMEN to this.

When I moved to my present town my wife & I were visiting various churches.

In one of them, a very prominent one, we visited the SS and I noticed the teacher just skipped over part of the scripture. A few minutes later one of the regulars asked about this, & she replied that she didn't understand it, so "I just ignored it".

Told my wife after SS that we could write off that church, and, as it turned out, it was one of the liberal leaning ones, so we would not have set roots there anyway.

But a simple "I don't know" would have been very acceptable and welcome

 

ditto................................

 

We all know how liberal "The View" is. Where did they get that poll from? To the person that said they left the church they visited because of skipping the passage since she didn't understand it. I say WAY TO GO!!!!:thumbsup: I've left a church before because they didn't like that the dress I had on had a slit to my knee. gasp. LOL And my husband and I left one because it was too man focused.

 

In response to Squire's inquiry, I think the answer is that in light of the high rates of Biblical illiteracy we need to take every opportunity to reach out to the world by our good works which will open doors to giving the good Word to others as 1 Peter 3:13-17 teach-

Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.

I have been blessed in that I had to recently become bi-vocational. I was able to get a position in a local college as a tutor on a part-time basis. I was further blessed by having a boss who is a Christian and who told me that if the students "open the door" then I am allowed to go through it. I have had some great conversations about the Lord with the students as well as with my co-workers. There haven't been any decisions for Christ made that I am aware of but, what a mission field!!

We need to get out of our offices and into the trenches more.

I should add, as to the question of Biblical authority, my finding is that most times the amount of authority folks give to the Bible is in direct proportion to the amount of living folks do according to the Bible. Folks tend to respect what is said when we live it before them.

 

Youtube: The View Hot Topic "Does Satan Exist?"

Joy rightly sensed something was fishy about Barbara's poll "numbers".

The actual Barna Goup survey she is citing is detailed here, including the finding that 27% of adults believe that Satan is a real force.

The 9% of adults and 1% of young adults are those who answered every single of a series of questions with the pollster-determined "biblical-viewpoint" answer.

 

The illiteracy rate has nothing to do with obedience. There are those who have much head knowledge and tremble at the thought of sharing their faith because they lack boldness. However I have not met one person who shares their faith who is ignorant about what the Bible teaches. They are constantlyasked questions and challenged.

 

You are correct my friend. When I was a child where I lived, one could have a talk with a loss person about salvation and they knew what you were talking about, today most don't have clue. We did live in a Christian culture for the most part and today we don't. For the most part the area isn't even Christian friendly today. Kind of like Paul speaking to the Greeks they didn't know as much so he told them about their unknown god. He led them right to his know God.

 

One of my seminary professors told the class that when he was younger the view was that if a person wanted to know about Jesus they would go to church much like if a person wanted a drink they would to to a tavern. In essence they did not share their faith.

I am quite confident that if one were to ask the children of believers about their parents that the vast majority would make the claim that they have never heard their parents share their faith and that their parents would have never taught them to share their faith.

 

Also, many people don't take the Scriptures at face value. They focus more upon what someone else sez about them than upon what they actually say.